


Hide and Seek

by RocBaroque



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Underage Drinking, drinking in general, if i had but spirit and time enough this could become the Fathership but alas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocBaroque/pseuds/RocBaroque
Summary: Seteth and Jeralt trade stories about their kids. (Seteth Week prompt: storytelling)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Seteth Week Fics





	Hide and Seek

The boisterous post-Battle celebration is a fixture of academic life at Garreg Mach. This year's students, however, are not just eccentric but hot-blooded, elevating the already lively event to a fever-pitch. In any of his previous seventeen years as advisor and administrator, the Feast of Eagle and Lion never proved an impediment to his ability to quietly requisition from the dining hall a bottle of Srengi red (Imperial Year 197, not a vintage so much as an artifact) and spend the night far from the reveling youth, poring over new liturgical texts, or administrative ledgers, or recently discovered historical accounts ripe and ready for a censor's pen... In other words, a night of splendid, uninterrupted busywork.

This year, however, is different, for a multitude of reasons.

The dining hall is dense with bodies, officer candidates and student-hopefuls and young knights and clergy celebrating in equal measure. The air is saturated with the scent of seared meat and hot spices. There is music playing from not one, not two, but _four_ separate instruments, uncoordinated. Someone who sounds suspiciously like Caspar von Bergliez keeps shouting his inappropriate song requests.

Seteth does not _cringe_ or _flinch_ — he is far too old, and has seen far worse than this — but he still cannot help but clench his jaw at the assault on both his senses and his propriety.

The partiers retain yet enough of their awareness to clear a path when they see him coming — or perhaps they sense his disapproval like prey animals can sense danger. The Gonerils' daughter definitely _yelps_ at the sight of him, shoving aside her house leader and his preening companion with more strength than he ever suspected she could muster. Seteth makes note of it, far in the corner of his mind dedicated to such practical observation. But, at the moment, he only narrows his eyes at them.

There is no room at the dining hall's vast and polished counter, save for a space directly beside the one of last people he would ever volunteer to share his time with. The grizzled, yellow-haired man is broad enough to take up space for two, though that does not seem to have impeded Miss Pinelli, who is of course hanging eagerly upon his every word.

But Seteth did not press this far into the throng of revelers just to turn back at the sight of Jeralt the Blade-Breaker. _Captain_ Jeralt, as Rhea has so impulsively reelevated him. Seteth pushes forward, a grim expression fixed upon his face.

The kitchen staff veteran flinches at his approach, and offers an apologetic smile. At least they understand he absolutely does _not_ approve of the fiasco occurring here tonight. "Seteth," they shout over the music, twisting their hands in their apron. "Your... usual?"

He gives a curt nod.

"Just a, um, just a moment." They bob their head, continuing with the contrite look, and disappear into the crowd of overworked staff.

"Usual, huh?"

Goddess forbid the noise drown _him_ out. Seteth folds his arms over the counter.

"Didn't take you for much a drinker, Seteth." The single sphere of ice in Jeralt's glass spins under a sheen of dark amber liquid. Beyond his shoulder, Leonie looks unusually flushed.

Seteth resists the urge to rub at his temple. "Your 'take' was correct, Captain."

The Bergliez son appears at Leonie's side, attempting to press an amber bottle into her hand. Miss Pinelli hisses something at him through her teeth. His bright blue eyes find Seteth, grow wider than plates, and the two of them vanish into the crowd as if their reputations depended on it.

"Is it possible you've turned a blind eye to the number of young people here in possession of alcohol?" Seteth continues to the man beside him. "Or is it that you are all too aware of how such things passed into their possession in the first place?"

Jeralt shrugs and sips from his drink. "Not that it's related, but I was 16 when I had my first beer. And when I made my first kill." He pauses. "Older than some of these students."

Seteth bristles at his tone — casual and pointed all at once. But the Captain continues without even a glance in his direction.

"I could only keep my own kid from it for so long. I think the first time I caught them taking sips when I wasn't looking, they had to be about—" Jeralt pauses. "Well. It was a while ago."

"Hmph," and as soon as the sound leaves his chest he regrets it. Did he really _harrumph_ like a sulking adolescent?

Well, what can one expect. His attitude toward the Blade-Breaker—an attitude he assumes is extremely mutual — can at times bring out the worst in him. Captain Eisner's brusque disregard for protocol is enough to make him grind him teeth to dust, to say nothing of his casual confidence.

... _Earned_ , perhaps, but that doesn't give one the right to flaunt it so. His very presence has caused Rhea to act more and more... irrationally.

"It isn't my fault Lady Rhea appointed me against your advice," Jeralt opines, annoyingly. "But you seem to want to give me the cold shoulder about it anyway."

Seteth narrows his eyes, glaring somewhere deep into the kitchen.

"And Byleth, too." Jeralt chuckles. "You shouldn't take it out on them. Accepting the teaching post Lady Rhea offered them shouldn't be a surprise." He shrugs. The spirits must have loosened his usually intractable mood. "Listen, the kid's followed me everywhere. I gave them plenty of chances to head out on their own, but they stick around. Stealing my beers was the least of it. When they were little, they'd—"

Ice clinks against the rim of his glass when he drinks. The stars have aligned and the four separate minstrels are between songs, leaving only the shapeless rumble of countless young voices.

"Byleth'd want a piece of anything I was eating. Before they even had teeth. They'd get noisy about it, wouldn't take no for an answer. I had to..." Jeralt lifts his free hand, mimes flinging an invisible morsel over the counter. "Toss a bit as far away as I could. The kid would toddle on over to it, sit in the dirt, and shove whatever it was in their mouth. But they couldn't stand and turn yet, so they'd have to finish it, scoot around in place, and toddle on back. Bought me and the company a good fifteen minutes between begs."

"In the dirt." Seteth repeats, aghast.

Jeralt looks rather infuriatingly like he is trying not to smile. "So you never needed to do anything like that with Flayn."

"Flayn was perfect," he agrees before he can catch himself, catch what Jeralt is subtly implying. "As sweet-tempered and well-behaved as the young woman you know today."

Jeralt shrugs again. "I guess Byleth is pretty strong-willed."

_And Flayn is not?_ He can't help but bristle. "Were it not for my careful guidance and constant vigilance, she certainly might have become more like the erstwhile trouble-makers your child now finds themselves struggling to lead."

The Captain blinks. "You'll have to forgive me. I find that hard to believe."

But the memories surround him suddenly, armed to the teeth, memories of struggling just to keep the two of them unrecognized, unthreatened. "The times she has frightened me to within an inch of my life," he mutters. "Once, Captain — _once_ — she took it upon herself to slink out from under my notice and wander off with the children of the village. When I came to search for her, half-mad with panic, none of the children could tell me where she was." Even now, centuries later, his heart races at the retelling. "I searched everywhere, called her name for what must have been an hour. Until finally, just before despair could claim me, she parted the branches of a nearby tree to reveal herself. She was laughing!" He waves a hand in exasperation. "Smiling! Playing a game the children called _hide-and-go-seek_."

Jeralt raises his eyebrows.

"She had no intention of losing, even with me stumbling through the woods calling for her until I was hoarse."

The Captain shakes his head, a grin finally spread across his usually solemn face. "Kids."

At the time, Seteth had not found it quite so amusing. Even _now,_ he struggles to think of it as anything but terrifying.

But for a moment, it is not the maddeningly recalcitrant Captain of the Knights of Seiros trading stories with him. It is merely another beleaguered father.

"It sounds like you've been taking care of her solo for a lot longer than I thought." Jeralt seems to chew on this. And suddenly, Seteth wonders what has caused him to become so frank about his past.

The veteran member of the kitchen staff returns, apologizing, with a red bottle so dark it could be black. The musicians have started again, blessedly in tune with each other, but he has now his excuse to take his leave. While the kitchen staff fumbles over their words. Jeralt is eyeing the dusty old bottle with something like appreciation.

When last had he held conversation with another man like himself, alone in raising the only child they might ever have?

But.

"Good night, Captain."

Not tonight. Not with the students everywhere — especially not where the precocious Riegan heir can potentially listen in. There will be time for it later, he is certain.

And Jeralt shrugs and returns to his drink.


End file.
